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Credit to Author: Matt Burgess| Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2022 12:00:00 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n Matt Burgess<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories<\/a>.<\/p>\n To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories<\/a>.<\/p>\n On the snowy<\/span> roads near Kursk, tanks and military equipment stop traffic. Videos from around the Russian city\u2014roughly 100 miles from the border with Ukraine\u2014show cars waiting in line<\/a> to cross train tracks being used to transport tanks from one place to the next. Dozens of military vehicles have been filmed parked together<\/a>. And shaky footage shows tanks rumbling across snowy ground alongside a busy road<\/a>. All of these records have one thing in common: They were shared on TikTok.<\/p>\n If Russia invades Ukraine, don\u2019t expect the TikToks to stop. From small Belarusian villages to industrial Russian cities on the Ukrainian border, as the tanks and troops have rolled in, local residents have captured the scenes on their phones\u2014and uploaded what might one day be crucial evidence to social media.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a lot of data out there,\u201d says Benjamin Strick, investigations director at the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR), a nonprofit organization that focuses on countering influence operations. The CIR team, along with other open source investigators, have been busy verifying and mapping videos of troop movements in Russia and Belarus for several weeks, painstakingly comparing landmarks in video footage with satellite images and other official data to confirm their authenticity. The CIR\u2019s map of verified videos plots the movements of military equipment and troops all around Ukraine\u2019s eastern flanks<\/a>. In January, the CIR mapped 79 pieces of footage; in February, it has verified 166 videos so far.<\/p>\n Since April 2021<\/a>, the mobilization of Russian troops has been accompanied by reams of digital evidence. These come from a variety of sources, from smartphone footage to high-resolution overhead images captured by commercial satellite companies. Troops, helicopters, and military hardware have all been spotted in satellite images<\/a>. But for people on the ground, TikTok has emerged as a key platform for showing military movements.<\/p>\n \u201cTikTok is definitely one of the main platforms being used to document this,\u201d says Eliot Higgins, the founder of open source investigative unit Bellingcat<\/a>, which has been exposing Russian espionage for years<\/a>. That footage often also finds its way onto Twitter or other social media platforms and joins other footage being posted there.<\/p>\n The TikTok videos from around Kursk\u2014all of which have had their location verified by the CIR\u2014provide a snapshot of how powerful open source intelligence, also known as OSINT, has become. The videos contribute to media reports and policy discussions. They can be low quality and poorly framed, but they show exactly what is happening at a specific moment in time.<\/p>\n Accounts sharing short videos of troop buildups, which have been reviewed by WIRED, often appear to be from regular people\u2014videos of tanks moving sit next to clips of children playing. This also means not many people are watching them. Multiple verified videos from around Kursk have under 1,000 views and even fewer comments and shares. \u201cThere is no need for traitors, on tik tok all the movements of equipment will be shown \ud83d\ude02,\u201d reads one comment below a TikTok video of tanks waiting to cross a road.<\/p>\n And while some people are simply sharing videos of something unusual happening in their hometown, others are using TikTok far more deliberately. Strick says he has seen numerous anonymous TikTok accounts created to upload and share footage of Russian military activity around the Ukrainian border. Since the start of this year, CIR has created new TikTok accounts to train its algorithm to show footage of military movements around Russia, Strick says. TikTok\u2019s algorithm, although opaque, recommends videos that are similar to what people have already watched, liked, or followed. \u201cThat sort of interaction was enough for us to then refresh our content feeds and start to get the same kind of content recommended,\u201d Strick says. Within a few weeks, the CIR had trained TikTok\u2019s algorithm to show it a steady stream of videos appearing to be from the region.<\/p>\n Russia has downplayed its intentions to invade Ukraine as it holds negotiations with Nato and political leaders from around the world. On February 15, president Vladimir Putin said the country was still seeking a \u201cdiplomatic path\u201d and avoiding confrontation<\/a>. Official reports can be notoriously hard to verify, but open source documentation can help hold power to account. After Putin claimed to de-escalate the situation and withdraw troops, officials from NATO and elsewhere said they had not seen evidence of this<\/a>\u2014something backed up by Bellingcat and other open source researchers<\/a>.<\/p>\n As more troops have headed toward Ukraine since the start of 2022, US and British intelligence officials have released details of what they believe Russia may be planning. This includes plans of alleged false flag operations<\/a>, incidents that could be a precursor to an invasion. These intelligence briefings are often scant on details, due to information being classified, and hard for external sources to verify. But on the ground it is just as likely to be TikTok videos that reveal whether troops are moving forward or pulling back.<\/p>\n However, there are risks. Those sharing footage from Russia and Ukraine\u2014including open source investigators, journalists, and people on social media\u2014could wind up amplifying incorrect information if it has not first been verified. \u201cWe will have to be careful consumers of information\u2014suspicious to the possibility of active measures designed to fool us,\u201d Sandra Joyce, an executive vice president and head of global intelligence at security firm Mandiant, wrote in a blog post<\/a>. Joyce warns that the media could easily be manipulated through an excess of information, both in the context of Russia-linked cyberattacks<\/a> and wider operations. \u201cThe media will also be especially challenged\u2014they will be asked to shed light on active measures while adversaries simultaneously attempt to leverage them to launder their narratives and content,\u201d Joyce wrote.<\/p>\n As well as legitimate videos and images of scenes from Russia and Ukraine, there will be efforts to manipulate this information. Russia\u2019s disinformation<\/a> operations<\/a> are sophisticated<\/a> and well-documented<\/a>. Russian military satellite images released as evidence in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) were previously altered, Bellingcat has shown<\/a>. Strick also warns that \u201cless trustworthy\u201d footage claiming to show military activity on the Ukrainian border is already being uploaded. \u201cIt might be old footage, it might be footage that was along Ukraine's borders but from previous years, as well as footage from other conflicts,\u201d he says. Old or false information can potentially shape wider narratives and media reporting around what is happening on the ground.<\/p>\n